ANNE NYAGA: 4-K Clubs: Champions of climate change

Kenya, like the rest of the world, is currently looking for innovative ways to deal with the climate change crisis, considered to be the existential threat to our survival as a planet.

Rising levels of carbon dioxide due to actions, and inactions, of human beings has led us to the precipice, and we need to all join in the effort to act, and bring about change now.

As a nation, our young people have joined the global effort to work collectively and collaboratively with similar-minded nations and organisations to reverse climate change, particularly through the recently relaunched 4-K Clubs of Kenya.

One such initiative that’s aimed at solving the climate change crisis at community level is the One Million Kitchen Gardens Initiative.

This is a ‘smart agriculture for climate change’ initiative that aims to eventually distribute 1 million kitchen garden starter kits (sheds, assorted vegetable packs, and dryers), with 280,000 in the process of being distributed across 21 counties – with more than 13,000 households and 4-K Clubs per county being targeted.

In Tharaka-Nithi county alone, 1,000 kitchen garden starter kits have been distributed. Club members and households can use the kits to produce safe assorted vegetables for their health and nutrition and boost their food security in a climate-smart way. These are all core pillars of the 4-K Clubs.

By building the capacities of children to learn about agricultural production, and by giving the children a platform to contribute to interventions that mitigate climate change, you give them a chance to start contributing to their future.

Agriculture is highly dependent on the climate, and therefore the stakes for the ministry, and 4-K Clubs, in particular, are very high.

Counties are also taking up individual mandates to fight climate change. During the last Devolution Conference that took place in Makueni, all county governments vowed to fight climate change by apportioning some of their budgets towards the issue.

With agriculture as a core economic empowerment activity, the use of smart agriculture for climate change, as well as existing 4-K Club structures, means there already are existing structures within which allocated resources can have an immediate impact.

By design, individual governors are the patrons of 4-K Clubs in their respective counties, and can therefore use these structures to action climate change mitigation measures.

The environmental conservation pillar is a thematic area that the 4-K Clubs is keen to focus on, as it closely relates to agriculture.

At the moment, by working collaboratively with key stakeholders, and by continuing with the training of trainers at subcounty level for effective execution of 4-K Clubs, young people are gaining the right knowledge and skills to ensure that they enter and succeed in mitigating the effects of climate change.

Agriculture Chief Administrative Secretary